ASRock announces the Rack D2100D8UM — first Xeon D-2100 motherboard

The ASRock Rack D2100D8UM. (Source: ASRock)

ASRock has announced the Rack D2100D8UM with support for the Intel Xeon D-2100 processor. The motherboard is an integrated platform and can be ordered with any of the newly launched Xeon D-2100 series SoCs.

In the wake of Intel launching the new Xeon D-2100-series CPUs, ASRock has announced an integrated motherboard solution that can embed any CPU in the D-2100 series. The ASRock D2100D8UM motherboard features an embedded D-2100-series CPU, 8 RAM slots, 2 PCIe slots, support for 12 SATA3 ports, and an integrated intelligent platform management interface (IPMI) with dedicated LAN management.

The website mentions that the board can support up to 512 GB DDR4 RAM but the spec sheet mentions only up to 128 GB. However, the board supports UDIMM, RDIMM, and LR DIMM ECC RAM modules at various DDR4 speeds up to 2666 MHz depending on the SoC used. The 2 PCIe slots are actually x8 and x16 and switch to operate in x16/x0 or x8/x8 modes. A single USB 2.0 and a single USB 3.0 port along with respective headers round up the features.

The rear panel is pretty barebones featuring an Ethernet port for the IPMI LAN management, USB ports, and a VGA port and header from the Aspeed AST2500 graphics adapter. Extra LAN ports for Ethernet connectivity can be added by using a mezzanine type LAN card with an appropriate PHY chip as there is no onboard ethernet. While ASRock did not specify the exact Xeon D-2100 CPUs it plans to embed, the board itself supports CPUs up to 110W TDP, which should include all the D-2100 SKUs.

The Xeon D-2100 series targets the edge computing market. Edge computing can be thought of as a sort of 'micro datacenter' and it refers to the placement of datacenter-grade networks, compute power, and storage much closer to endpoint devices. That means, data analytics can be performed closer to the data source instead of at centralized nodes. This enables low latency operations and lesser load on the central node in the cloud infrastructure. Edge computing finds applications in healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and other mission critical sectors.

I am a cell and molecular biologist and computers have been an integral part of my life ever since I laid my hands on my first PC which was based on an Intel Celeron 266 MHz processor, 16 MB RAM and a modest 2 GB hard disk. Since then, I’ve seen my passion for technology evolve with the times. From traditional floppy based storage and running DOS commands for every other task, to the connected cloud and shared social experiences we take for granted today, I consider myself fortunate to have witnessed a sea change in the technology landscape. I honestly feel that the best is yet to come, when things like AI and cloud computing mature further. When I am not out finding the next big cure for cancer, I read and write about a lot of technology related stuff or go about ripping and re-assembling PCs and laptops.